


Pressure's on Both Hearts

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Hugs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John makes an unusual, fictional purchase for Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pressure's on Both Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own the rights to the characters, setting, show, etc. No harm intended.  
> Not Britpicked because oh well.

Sometime in the early afternoon, he plods up the stairs and slumps through the door, almost taking John's elbow off with such high dramatics as can only be displayed upon a door handle by Sherlock Holmes.

Naturally, a little startled and entirely aware of the close-as-hell call his funny bone just had, John backs away a little to let the door slam and make room for any more emphatic displays of misery.

"I," Sherlock says, "have had. A miserable. Day."

"Okay." It's Sunday, so, clearly.

"I have had a miserable, _miserable_ , awful, _awful_ day." Despite the repetition (an indicator of Boring) each word carries a differently-calibrated load of horrible weight (an indicator of Less Boring).

"Wow. That is. That is really foul. I'm incredibly sorry." John dredges a less-smiley frown out. This one might actually require some semblance of sympathy. "Tea then? Or..." John makes a cautionary shuffle toward the kitchen. John's mind likes to pour tea on problems, the hotter, the better. All problems can be at least partially solved by tea, like tense muscles under a warm bath. Sherlock doesn't know his Muscles are so easily loosened.

But then Hateful Glare is turned up to ten. It's armor piercing. "TEA. Humph." His mouth frowns down with multiple curls. Sherlock is incredibly Seussian.

Well. John's tea goes to the mental back-burner.

"Something arrived for you," he says, instead.

"boring,"

"Right, a rather amorphous sort of box. Can boxes be 'amorphous'?"

One brow pops out of the Glare to acquiesce. "Where is it."

"I already opened it. It said 'one hug for everybody named Sherlock.'"

Sherlock gets so confused his face goes genuinely blank. Blank almost like, for once, his mind didn't catch up.

John takes this unguarded moment to slide a tiny bit closer, within firing range. His steady hands remind him that this is the better place to be, no matter what his elbow felt a minute ago.

When expression does return to Sherlock's face, it doesn't seem he can understand what to _be_ and half of his face does sort of a "What" thing and half of his face does sort of a "Who are you because I thought you were John" thing.

Then he says, "I'm Sherlock," and equally as Seussian, his smile unravels upwards ('his heart grew three sizes') and if John can imagine a less world-weary, a younger Sherlock, he has just appeared.

John pulls his hands from his pockets and shrugs. "Must be it's for you, then."

Then Sherlock's mind is fully recovered from the stall. It was a joke, and Sherlock doesn't always _get_ jokes, so John sees the eyes spike around the room for actual packaging. No box. His eyes narrow and refocus on John, take in the arms, fallen to the side. Take in the expression, suppressed quirk, slightly teasing. Interesting.

John sees his eyes stop on Interesting.

"You can have it now or later. How horrible a day was it? You might want to take it now. It could help. Possibly. If not, there's always tea. Do you want it now?"

Sherlock is quiet. Then:  
"I want it now, yes."

John nods, looks at his watch as if marking the time, nods again and fully extends his arms.

Oh. But Sherlock does _smile_.

He moves slowly into John's atmosphere and wraps his arms around him, dropping his nose into the crook of John's neck and folding in all over him, sealing all the gaps. When John's arms are securely around his neck and waist, he releases a great breath and John pressurizes around him accordingly.

"I don't order this kind of thing for myself."

"I may have got it for you. Happy Birthday or whatever."

"Not my birthday," Sherlock's muffled mouth feels frowny.

"Maybe I just like you and wish you had better days."

Sherlock doesn't say a lot after that. He just breathes for a while. It's actually really nice and John hadn't fully expected that all those smooth planes and bony angles would be quite so encompassing, but they are. He is.

He lets Sherlock pull from the hug, order filled, as it were. And if he looks a little confused it gets overridden on his face by some strange little happiness.

John returns the smile. He feels a bit creased, actually, from the intensity of a full-body Sherlock wrap. But it is a lingering warmth in his jumper kind of feeling. A useful kind of feeling. John is nothing if not generous, and sharing himself with Sherlock doesn't open old wounds, just skins his knees in new places and he comes to enjoy the weathered feeling, the way it forges him. It makes him the John he is right now, in their shared flat.

"When you disengage the hug it's complete but, erm, well, I might as well admit. I was going to save one for myself, but it was sort of a buy-one-get-two-free deal. You know how it is, cash back points and all that."

Sherlock is still smiling. "Trust you to buy the bread that molds a half day earlier and wait for the three-for-one sale." Physical affection with a coupon. It makes Sherlock laugh a bit which is smarter and faster than tea.

"You can have them now or save them for later," John continues to tease him, but then concentration clouds his easy features.

"Mmmm. Later. I think."

"Right," John nods. He spins for the kitchen. In a further measure of self-preservation with a mind to occupy the case-less hours, he reminds Sherlock that the various animal ears in the lumpy evidence bag in the veg drawer, if they aren't used today, are getting binned.

There are three more hours of quiet afternoon.

«»

Sunday is for dozing. Lots of people know this. Common knowledge being far too, you know, _common_ as it is, is not anywhere in Sherlock's mental files.

But the violin is light and comforting and he wakes a few times to more pleasant strains before the outside sky starts to darken the walls inside. The forgotten novel leaps off John's chest with, like, half of his restful afternoon calm when the real screeching starts up.

"Go check on your forks," he growls and rubs his eyes and stretches in his seat. Hears rather than sees Sherlock set aside the strings to check on the ear collection pinned to the wall with cutlery.

The huffs mean he simply didn't get the results he was expecting. Skin penetration and stretching and whatever. Pig ears, rat ears, rabbit ears, cat ears, fuck's sake. "Human ears," he hears Sherlock curse from the kitchen. Alas, there had been no human ears free to utilize for this experiment.

John has gotten to the point he no longer differentiates the feeling in his belly that says something is gross and hanging by fork tines in his kitchen and the feeling that means he's possibly very hungry. It feels a bit like a failing as a human being but holy hell he's hungry. Soup, he thinks, _soup_ and _warm bread_ , yessss.

He yawns and by the time his limbs ease out of it he opens his eyes to Sherlock. Looming.

"Did you wash your hands?"

Sherlock disappears. John picks his novel up from the floor and attempts to find his lost page. By the time he marks it Sherlock is looming good and proper.

"This day is horrible," he reminds John.

"Soup would make it better," John says with confidence and hopes rather than believes he'll get the point of that rather pointy point. "Warm rolls and butter."

"I want to redeem one of my hugs. I've two left."

John finds amused curiosity on his own face. What made him think Sherlock wouldn't be humored with this? It was so simple. Simple things did not please him. At least that's what he _thought_.

Sherlock impatiently holds up two fingers. One, two.

John nods and stands and leaves his novel to be swallowed by the seat cushion. He makes a show of checking his watch, entering a good, loose stance, nodding. Right. He extends his arms.

Sherlock steps into them and the intensity of it is a little shocking this time. Sherlock is not amused. John determines this from the hug. He is frustrated and has been for days. Leaving the flat and actually looking for trouble hasn't even worked, tea hasn't eased the Muscle strain, experiments have produced less-than-desirable results. John goes to work without him, sleeps without him, goes down the pub without him, leaves him to his own devices. John feels how much he's _here_ right now, almost as if he's absorbing the message from Sherlock's bent head and solid torso.

Sherlock is communicating with him. It's louder than the violin at four a.m. Quieter than disappearing into the dark on a frustrating night and not realizing it's possible he'd be unable to return.

Immediately, John drops the joking pretense from his own frame. John holds him. They are squeezed tight and cautiously comfortable when there is a mobile buzz. Sherlock's nose disappears from John's neck and the phone actually reaches the second consecutive buzz before Sherlock moves away and digs into his pockets.

"Fuck!" his outburst is raw and genuine, his hand falls, text message unread, and Sherlock looks to the ceiling angrily. "I disengaged it. I can't fucking--" he sighs, his shoulders drop, he still hasn't read his text. His eyes search John for weakness. "I had _two_ left."

John's smile is inappropriately indulgent. The goddamn text probably says they're wanted at a fucking murder scene or something. And Sherlock doesn't even look at it until John shakes his head sadly, replies, "only one now," and checks his watch, not really marking the time.

«»

The text is not a body. The text is a mercy clue. A little action Lestrade tends to send Sherlock's way for John's mental health. Lestrade is incredibly aware that John Watson's mental health is responsible for the odd, disturbingly rare quiet moment in the office every now and again.

It's new, and sacred, that _quiet_ thing. He wants to keep it. He likes it an awful lot.

Right now there's a pair of estranged parents in his office, bickering venomously under their breaths at each other. He was called in and he was so enjoying his Sunday until it became his really early Monday.

The parents don't even deserve proper attention yet, but the Sunday shift had no idea what else to do with them. The mother is screaming murder up and down, the father screaming money, money, money.

Detective Inspector Lestrade closes his office door, locking himself in with the chaos and immediately wants to inflict these screeching bastards upon Sherlock.

He does not. He calms them down, separates them, gets their stories, and confirms his suspicion that it wasn't enough to go on, so it is an appropriate job for Sherlock.

As soon as he mentions there might be someone he could pay to begin the search effort, the father almost throws his wallet at Lestrade.

The first text message is to grab Sherlock's attention. (Yard ASAP. Student 19 F. Immunization-related amnesiac. 13 hrs. No sign.)

The second is to get John's. (Student 19 F. Biology & child psychology. Chk payable, parents terrible, SH can terrify them. 100% game. Plz reply.)

«»

Days later, breathless, crouched in a ditch, and elated.

She is alive. The girl is gloriously alive. She was confused, lost, then returned to the dubious embrace of her squabbling parents.

John has a cheque with a few digits full of zeros sealed safely in an evidence bag in his pocket. He'd learned to keep one for his phone after the first time he had to bin half his clothes, hopeless with mud and gore from a construction site crime scene. 

They are tired and hungry, the both of them. Smiles and falling over sideways, breathless. No bullets, no knives, very few psychotic ulterior motives. The young, pervy professor is gone to gaol, the roommates relieved, the parents put in their proper place, loving their daughter, smiling and clutching her in the shine of blue-and-red lights.

Sherlock stretches his long legs out in front of him. It takes some effort. He is soaked through. He leans forward and closes his eyes and breathes, exhilarated, gloriously _right_ , as well, above all things. He has earned his genius this week and it's not even Wednesday.

John waves away Lestrade's wide smile from up on the road above and breathes for a while himself.

Eventually, John crawls up behind Sherlock on his knees and wraps his arms around his neck. He clutches Sherlock to him and breathes in his wet head of hair, closes his eyes.

"Free-with-purchase, two millionth customer or something," he says between panting breaths.

Sherlock laughs and leans back, hands on John's arms.

«»

"I'm ready for my third hug," Sherlock murmurs from the couch. He is stretched on the sofa, digging his feet into the other end. John and Sherlock are full and quiet together, warm and tired. Content after the case, at least for a little while. Sherlock might actually sleep, now. He might not even fidget much until tomorrow when John gets home from work.

"Hugs for Sherlocks," Sherlock says, his big crinkly Sherlock smile and his long, warm, limbs, promising miles of Sherlock luxury.

John puts his tea aside, turns the muted telly off completely, and makes a show of checking his watch once again. Sherlock laughs, full-throated, and that makes John smile.

He moves to stand in front of the couch but Sherlock won't rise. Instead, he lifts his arms and invites John in with him. "I was cheated on number two. I have no intention of letting go until I _must_ , on this occasion."

Message received, John thinks, and sinks to the cushions gladly, crowding Sherlock's stick figure in and nearly falling off himself. Sherlock grips him and laughs. John has to roll the longer form on top of himself and it feels so stupidly fucking good. 

"Hugs for everybody called Sherlock," Sherlock says again. "I should get a discount for those."

"Frequent buyers club."

"I'd make a perfect criminal, John. You won't even know I've taken them until they're gone."

"Well, I am pretty stupid."

Sherlock finally kisses his ear, soundly, strange echoing, smacking noise on the lobe. "Rich and stupid, I'll take you. Indulge my new addiction. Ooh, and a doctor, too. Handsome. Pocket-sized."

"Alright," John says, "yeah, alright."

"Strong, handles a gun, a warm heart--"

Sherlock cuts himself off. Fire in his head, burn, burn, sear, smoke. Panic dawning. John is so _warm_. Oh, god.

John feels it again, feels what he's thinking in Sherlock's embrace. John picks him back up again, unraveles an arm and draws Sherlock's hand to his chest, above the beating.

"Already burning Sherlock," he kisses his friend's head, "as overdramatic as that sounds. It will keep us warm until it's over."

"I'd prefer it wasn't over. Ever, maybe," Sherlock whispers.

"Oh, break me why don't you," he says back, holding him, holding him. "John Watson: A Sherlock-Exclusive Service."

The smile returns, long and luxurious and warm, like the night that comes after it.


End file.
